The Lone Star Ranger and the Mysterious Rider (59 page)

Wade did not linger after the meal was ended despite the fact that Belllounds recovered his cordiality. It was dark when he went out. Columbine followed him, talking cheerfully. Once outside she squeezed his hand and whispered, “How's Wilson?”

The hunter nodded his reply, and, pausing at the porch step, he pressed her hand to make his assurance stronger. His reward was instant. In the bright starlight she stood white and eloquent, staring down at him with dark, wide eyes.

Presently she whispered: “Oh, my friend! It wants only three days till October first!”

“Lass, it might be a thousand years for all you need worry,” he replied, his voice low and full. Then it seemed, as she flung up her arms, that she was about to embrace him. But her gesture was an appeal to the stars, to Heaven above, for something she did not speak.

Wade bade her good night and went his way.

*   *   *

The cowboys and the rancher's son were about to engage in a game of poker when Wade entered the dimly lighted, smoke-hazed room. Montana Jim was sticking tallow candles in the middle of a rude table; Lem was searching his clothes, manifestly for money; Bludsoe shuffled a greasy deck of cards; and Jack Belllounds was filling his pipe before a fire of blazing logs on the hearth.

“Dog-gone it! I hed more money 'n thet,” complained Lem. “Jim, you rode to Kremmlin' last. Did you take my money?”

“Wal, come to think of it, I reckon I did,” replied Jim, in surprise at the recollection.

“An' whar's it now?”

“Pard, I ain't no idee. I reckon it's still in Kremmlin'. But I'll pay you back.”

“I should smile you will. Pony up now.”

“Bent Wade, did you come over calkilated to git skinned?” queried Bludsoe.

“Boys, I was playin' poker tolerable well in Missouri when you all was nursin',” replied Wade, imperturbably.

“I heerd he was a card-sharp,” said Jim. “Wal, grab a box or a chair to set on an' let's start. Come along, Jack; you don't look as keen to play as usual.”

Belllounds stood with his back to the fire and his manner did not compare favorably with that of the genial cowboys.

“I prefer to play four-handed,” he said.

This declaration caused a little check in the conversation and put an end to the amiability. The cowboys looked at one another, not embarrassed, but just a little taken aback, as if they had forgotten something that they should have remembered.

“You object to my playin'?” asked Wade, quietly.

“I certainly do,” replied Belllounds.

“Why, may I ask?”

“For all I know, what Montana said about you may be true,” returned Belllounds, insolently.

Such a remark flung in the face of a Westerner was an insult. The cowboys suddenly grew stiff, with steady eyes on Wade. He, however, did not change in the slightest.

“I might be a card-sharp at that,” he replied, coolly. “You fellows play without me. I'm not carin' about poker any more. I'll look on.”

Thus he carried over the moment that might have been dangerous. Lem gaped at him; Montana kicked a box forward to sit upon, and his action was expressive; Bludsoe slammed the cards down on the table and favored Wade with a comprehending look. Belllounds pulled a chair up to the table.

“What'll we make the limit?” asked Jim.

“Two bits,” replied Lem, quickly.

Then began an argument. Belllounds was for a dollar limit. The cowboys objected.

“Why, Jack, if the ole man got on to us playin' a dollar limit he'd fire the outfit,” protested Bludsoe.

This reasonable objection in no wise influenced the old man's son. He overruled the good arguments, and then hinted at the cowboys' lack of nerve. The fun faded out of their faces. Lem, in fact, grew red.

“Wal, if we're agoin' to
gamble
, thet's different,” he said, with a cold ring in his voice, as he straddled a box and sat down. “Wade, lemme some money.”

Wade slipped his hand into his pocket and drew forth a goodly handful of gold, which he handed to the cowboy. Not improbably, if this large amount had been shown earlier, before the change in the sentiment, Lem would have looked aghast and begged for mercy. As it was, he accepted it as if he were accustomed to borrowing that much every day. Belllounds had rendered futile the easygoing, friendly advances of the cowboys, as he had made it impossible to play a jolly little game for fun.

The game began, with Wade standing up, looking on. These boys did not know what a vast store of poker knowledge lay back of Wade's inscrutable eyes. As a boy he had learned the intricacies of poker in the country where it originated; and as a man he had played it with piles of yellow coins and guns on the table. His eagerness to look on here, as far as the cowboys were concerned, was mere pretense. In Belllounds's case, however, he had a profound interest. Rumors had drifted to him from time to time, since his advent at White Slides, regarding Belllounds's weakness for gambling. It might have been cowboy gossip. Wade held that there was nothing in the West as well calculated to test a boy, to prove his real character, as a game of poker.

Belllounds was a feverish better, an exultant winner, a poor loser. His understanding of the game was rudimentary. With him, the strong feeling beginning to be manifested to Wade was not the fun of matching wits and luck with his antagonists, nor a desire to accumulate money—for his recklessness disproved that—but the liberation of the gambling passion. Wade recognized that when he met it. And Jack Belllounds was not in any sense big. He was selfish and grasping in the numberless little ways common to the game, and positive about his own rights, while doubtful of the claims of others. His cheating was clumsy and crude. He held out cards, hiding them in his palm, he shuffled the deck so he left aces at the bottom, and these he would slip off to himself, and he was so blind that he could not detect his fellow-player in tricks as transparent as his own. Wade was amazed and disgusted. The pity he had felt for Belllounds shifted to the old father, who believed in his son with stubborn and unquenchable faith.

“Haven't you got something to drink?” Jack asked of his companions.

“Nope. Whar'd we git it?” replied Jim.

Belllounds evidently forgot, for presently he repeated the query. The cowboys shook their heads. Wade knew they were lying, for they did have liquor in the cabin. It occurred to him, then, to offer to go to his own cabin for some, just to see what this young man would say. But he refrained.

The luck went against Belllounds and so did the gambling. He was not a lamb among wolves, by any means, but the fleecing he got suggested that. According to Wade he was getting what he deserved. No cowboys, even such good-natured and fine fellows as these, could be expected to be subjects for Belllounds's cupidity. And they won all he had.

“I'll borrow,” he said, with feverish impatience. His face was pale, clammy, yet heated, especially round the swollen bruises; his eyes stood out, bold, dark, rolling and glaring, full of sullen fire. But more than anything else his mouth betrayed the weakling, the born gambler, the self-centered, spoiled, intolerant youth. It was here his bad blood showed.

“Wal, I ain't lendin' money,” replied Lem, as he assorted his winnings. “Wade, here's what you staked me, an' much obliged.”

“I'm out, an' I can't lend you any,” said Jim.

Bludsoe had a good share of the profits of that quick game, but he made no move to lend any of it. Belllounds glared impatiently at them.

“Hell! you took my money. I'll have satisfaction,” he broke out, almost shouting.

“We won it, didn't we?” rejoined Lem, cool and easy. “An' you can have all the satisfaction you want, right now or any time.”

Wade held out a handful of money to Belllounds.

“Here,” he said, with his deep eyes gleaming in the dim room. Wade had made a gamble with himself, and it was that Belllounds would not even hesitate to take money.

“Come on, you stingy cowpunchers,” he called out, snatching the money from Wade. His action then, violent and vivid as it was, did not reveal any more than his face.

But the cowboys showed amaze, and something more. They fell straightway to gambling, sharper and fiercer than before, actuated now by the flaming spirit of this son of Belllounds. Luck, misleading and alluring, favored Jack for a while, transforming him until he was radiant, boastful, exultant. Then it changed, as did his expression. His face grew dark.

“I tell you I want drink,” he suddenly demanded. “I know damn well you cowpunchers have some here, for I smelled it when I came in.”

“Jack, we drank the last drop,” replied Jim, who seemed less stiff than his two bunk-mates.

“I've some very old rye,” interposed Wade, looking at Jim but apparently addressing all. “Fine stuff, but awful strong an' hot!… Makes a fellow's blood dance.”

“Go get it!” Belllounds's utterance was thick and full, as if he had something in his mouth.

Wade looked down into the heated face, into the burning eyes; and through the darkness of passion that brooked no interference with its fruition he saw this youth's stark and naked soul. Wade had seen into the depths of many such abysses.

“See hyar, Wade,” broke in Jim, with his quiet force, “never mind fetchin' thet red-hot rye to-night. Some other time, mebbe, when Jack wants more satisfaction. Reckon we've got a drop or so left.”

“All right, boys,” replied Wade, “I'll be sayin' good night.”

He left them playing and strode out to return to his cabin. The night was still, cold, starlit, and black in the shadows. A lonesome coyote barked, to be answered by a wakeful hound. Wade halted at his porch, and lingered there a moment, peering up at the gray old peak, bare and star-crowned.

“I'm sorry for the old man,” muttered the hunter, “but I'd see Jack Belllounds in hell before I'd let Columbine marry him.”

*   *   *

October first was a holiday at White Slides Ranch. It happened to be a glorious autumn day, with the sunlight streaming gold and amber over the grassy slopes. Far off the purple ranges loomed hauntingly.

Wade had come down from Wilson Moore's cabin, his ears ringing with the crippled boy's words of poignant fear.

Fox favored his master with unusually knowing gaze. There was not going to be any lion-chasing or elk-hunting this day. Something was in the wind. And Fox, as a privileged dog, manifested his interest and wonder.

Before noon a buckboard with team of sweating horses halted in the yard of the ranch-house. Besides the driver it contained two women whom Belllounds greeted as relatives, and a stranger, a pale man whose dark garb proclaimed him a minister.

“Come right in, folks,” welcomed Belllounds, with hearty excitement.

It was Wade who showed the driver where to put the horses. Strangely, not a cowboy was in sight, an omission of duty the rancher had noted. Wade might have informed him where they were.

The door of the big living-room stood open, and from it came the sound of laughter and voices. Wade, who had returned to his seat on the end of the porch, listened to them, while his keen gaze seemed fixed down the lane toward the cabins. How intent must he have been not to hear Columbine's step behind him!

“Good morning, Ben,” she said.

Wade wheeled as if internal violence had ordered his movement.

“Lass, good mornin',” he replied. “You sure look sweet this October first—like the flower for which you're named.”

“My friend, it
is
October first—my marriage day!” murmured Columbine.

Wade felt her intensity, and he thrilled to the brave, sweet resignation of her face. Hope and faith were unquenchable in her, yet she had fortified herself to the wreck of dreams and love.

“I'd seen you before now, but I had some job with Wils, persuadin' him that we'd not have to offer you congratulations yet awhile,” replied Wade, in his slow, gentle voice.

“
Oh!
” breathed Columbine.

Wade saw her full breast swell and the leaping blood wave over her pale face. She bent to him to see his eyes. And for Wade, when she peered with straining heart and soul, all at once to become transfigured, that instant was a sweet and all-fulfilling reward for his years of pain.

“You drive me mad!” she whispered.

The heavy tread of the rancher, like the last of successive steps of fate in Wade's tragic expectancy, sounded on the porch.

“Wal, lass, hyar you are,” he said, with a gladness deep in his voice. “Now, whar's the boy?”

“Dad—I've not—seen Jack since breakfast,” replied Columbine, tremulously.

“Sort of a laggard in love on his weddin'-day,” rejoined the rancher. His gladness and forgetfulness were as big as his heart. “Wade, have you seen Jack?”

“No—I haven't,” replied the hunter, with slow, long-drawn utterance. “But—I see—him now.”

Wade pointed to the figure of Jack Belllounds approaching from the direction of the cabins. He was not walking straight.

Old man Belllounds shot out his gray head like a striking eagle.

“What the hell?” he muttered, as if bewildered at this strange, uneven gait of his son. “Wade, what's the matter with Jack?”

Wade did not reply. That moment had its sorrow for him as well as understanding of the wonder expressed by Columbine's cold little hand trembling in his.

The rancher suddenly recoiled.

“So help me Gawd—he's drunk!” he gasped, in a distress that unmanned him.

Then the parson and the invited relatives came out upon the porch, with gay voices and laughter that suddenly stilled when old Belllounds cried, brokenly: “Lass—go—in—the house.”

But Columbine did not move, and Wade felt her shaking as she leaned against him.

The bridegroom approached. Drunk indeed he was; not hilariously, as one who celebrated his good fortune, but sullenly, tragically, hideously drunk.